Investment aids affordable housing

China invested 507 billion yuan ($80.5 billion) in government-subsidized housing in the first half of this year, according to figures released by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development on Monday.

In the first six months of 2012, local authorities began constructing 4.7 million affordable housing units.

To date, 2.6 million affordable housing units have been completed.

The government plans to start construction on at least seven million units this year, the ministry said.

China has vowed to build 36 million affordable housing units during the 2011-15 period in a bid to meet the demands of low-income families and cool the property market. Construction on 10 million units began last year.

Blacklist notes bad tourism companies

China will create a blacklist of unscrupulous tourism companies and agencies in October as a part of efforts to regulate the tourism market and foster the creation of a credit system for the sector.

The blacklist, which will be published by the National Tourism Administration and General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, will expose tourism companies and agencies that have violated national laws and industry rules or cheated customers, Du Jiang, deputy director of NTA, said on Monday at a national conference.

Du said the companies and agencies that are exposed will also be punished.

The NTA has urged its local branches to enhance supervision and severely punish industry players that disrupt market order.

Mysterious illness not found in China

A mysterious disease that has killed at least 52 children in Cambodia since April has not yet been detected in China, a Ministry of Health spokesman said on Monday.

Deng Haihua told a news conference that the ministry was "highly concerned" about the situation in Cambodia after the World Health Organization reported the undiagnosed illness to member countries.

China has reported no such cases to date, Deng said.

International health experts working to identify the illness have found a link to a virus that causes hand, foot and mouth disease, WHO said in a statement.

The Cambodian health authority has reported 59 cases of the undiagnosed illness in children aged 3 months to 11-year-old since mid-April. Of the 59 children, 52 died from the illness.

Lesbians allowed to donate blood

Chinese lesbians are being allowed to donate blood under revisions made to a regulation requiring that potential blood donors undergo health checks.

The revisions took effect on July 1. Although lesbians are allowed to give blood, gay men are still banned from doing so.

The Ministry of Health said the prevalence of HIV is still high among gay men.

Ministry statistics showed about 3 percent of Chinese men who have sexual intercourse with other men are HIV positive, a proportion far higher than the average for the entire population, which stands at about 0.057 percent.

Before the revisions, the regulation, issued in 2001, prohibited all homosexuals from giving blood.

In 2009, at least 540 lesbians on the mainland signed an online petition asking health authorities to remove the ban.

Jiangxi

Six dead as tricycle smashes into truck

Six people were killed and another seriously injured when a motorized tricycle crashed into a truck in East China's Jiangxi province on early Monday, according to local authorities.

The accident occurred at 3:20 am when the tricycle, carrying seven people, collided with a truck that was parking on the roadside of the No 316 National Highway in the city of Nanchang, the local publicity department said.

Six of the seven people riding on the tricycle died at the scene, while the severely injured seventh person was rushed to a local hospital.

An investigation into the accident is under way.

Tibet

Culture park to be landmark in Lhasa

Construction has begun on a 30-billion yuan ($4.7 billion) culture and tourism park in Lhasa, capital of Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region.

The park, with a planned area of 800 hectares located 2 km from downtown Lhasa, is expected to be completed in three to five years, said Ma Xinming, vice-mayor of Lhasa, as the project was launched on Sunday.

The park is designed to improve Tibet's tourism attractiveness and be a landmark of its cultural industry, Ma said.

Sichuan

Traffic resumes as landslide cleared

Traffic on a major railway in Southwest China's Sichuan province resumed at about 2:30 am on Monday, nearly seven hours after services on the line were disrupted by a rain-triggered landslide, local authorities said.

Persistent rain triggered a landslide around 7:48 pm on Sunday, leaving a section of the Baoji-Chengdu Railway near the city of Guangyuan blocked, according to the Xi'an railway bureau.

Several passenger trains were delayed as a result, the bureau said.

More than 1,000 people were sent to clear and repair the railway overnight despite heavy rain.

Hebei

Overpass collapse kills four workers

Four workers were killed after an overpass that was under construction collapsed in North China's Hebei province on Saturday, local authorities said on Monday.

A section of the overpass collapsed late Saturday, burying four workers under sandbags that fell from the unfinished bridge in Handan city, according to a statement released on Monday by the city government.

The workers died a few hours later after being taken to a hospital.

The overpass was being built by Hebei Zhongbang Construction.

The local government has set up an investigation panel to find out how the accident happened.

Fujian

Taxation official detained for rape

A senior taxation official in East China's Fujian province has been suspended from his post and detained on suspicion of raping a university student, local authorities said on Monday.

The official was deprived of his post as the director of Fuan branch of the State Administration of Taxation and put under custody on Sunday after a preliminary investigation by the police found he is suspected of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old woman.

Xinhua China Daily